Wireless
by elev
Summary: Elizabeth Ruben made a bet with Shaw-and lost. "Winner gets to pick what the loser wears for a day." It had sounded so harmless! Surely, Elizabeth reasoned, it would be something simple, if not ludicrous-a sombrero, maybe, or lurid legwarmers. Elizabeth really hadn't expecting a wireless toy...especially not with Shaw holding the remote. It was going to be one VERY long day...
1. Chapter 1

**Wireless**

**by Elev**

**Chapter 1**

Andrea Wilson's loft apartment was tiny, modern, and spotless, like it'd been clipped right out of a home magazine and dropped into the ninth floor of a building uptown. I closed the front door behind me as quietly as I could before I crept into the living room. I didn't make a single sound until I had checked the adjacent bedroom and miniature bathroom to make sure that our latest Number was _really_ at work and not hanging around waiting to confront strangers in her apartment.

"Okay," I whispered once I was satisfied that no one else was home. "Place is clear."

Shaw's voice crackled in my earpiece. "Good," she said. She sounded bored, but I heard the tiniest note of approval in her voice. "You're getting faster at picking locks. Anything interesting?"

"Not yet," I said, looking around the bedroom. It was very sparse and airy, with few pieces of furniture. A twin sized bed sat against one wall beneath the window, which looked out onto the street. The sheets looked like they had been folded by a machine; the bed was made _that_ well. There was a little bookcase next to the bed, but the selection of books wasn't very interesting; there were a few murder-mystery paperbacks, the kind you'd pick up at the airport waiting for a flight, and that was about it. Across the room was a small desk with a sleek desktop computer, one of those ultra-low-power jobs with just enough processing power to render a web browser without falling over. I sat down in front of the keyboard and powered the computer on.

"Hah!" I said quietly. "No password. This should be easy."

"Porn," Shaw said.

"Come again?" I said as I dug around in my purse for my flash drive.

"Maybe later," Shaw said. "I'm still recovering from last night." I snickered. Shaw clarified: "I said, 'Porn'. I'm betting Andrea has porn on her computer."

I scoffed and plugged the flash drive into the computer. A few seconds later, my analysis application popped up on the screen. "You're kidding me, right? Andrea Wilson? You saw her FriendZone page. She's like the straightest arrow ever."

"The quiet ones have the best porn stashes," Shaw said.

"Yeah, right," I said, instructing the analysis app to scan the computer for interesting files—images, audio files, documents, emails, saved passwords, encrypted partitions, usable temporary files, file fragments left in the swap area, recently deleted files in unallocated space, whatever I could gather. "There's no way Andrea has anything risque on here."

For a few seconds, Shaw didn't say anything. When she spoke again, her voice had a conspiratorial tone to it. "Let's make a bet," she said.

My fingers stumbled on the keyboard. Alarm bells went off in my mind, but before I could listen too closely to the voices in my head warning me to change the subject, _fast_, I found myself saying, "Oh? A bet? What'd you have in mind?"

"I dunno," Shaw said, and now red flags were waving like crazy. "Something harmless. Not money. We both have infinite money."

I laughed at that. Leaning back in Andrea's computer chair—which, despite its utilitarian appearance, was actually pretty comfortable—I said, "Loser has to bring hot chocolate and donuts on the next stakeout?"

"I was thinking more 'winner gets to pick what the loser wears for a day'," Shaw said idly.

I thought about that for a moment, eying the analysis application as it ran. The pie chart describing the contents of the computer's solid state drive _did _show a decent number of images and videos...but Andrea had Photoshack and FilmDirector Pro installed on the computer, so that wasn't too surprising.

_There's no way it's porn_, I thought. _There's just no way. I _saw_ her this morning. She looks even more like a schoolgirl than I do when I wear knee socks_. Totally_ conservative._

"Nothing that'd get us fired from our cover jobs?" I said tentatively. "Or get us arrested? Or make our friends disown us?"

"'Course not," Shaw said. "Just a little harmless fun."

"You're on," I said. "I hope you like Mary Janes. I'll get to call _you_ schoolgirl for a change."

Shaw didn't respond to that.

The mental image of Shaw wearing a skirt and shiny leather shoes was enough to make me grin as I explored some of the most image-heavy directories revealed by my analysis app. Sure, I felt just a little bit nervous opening up the first directory full of images, but the nervousness vanished as soon as the thumbnails started rendering. The folder had stock operating system images in it—icons, desktop backgrounds, and the like.

_I can't wait to see her face_, I thought to myself. The grin widened when the next directory revealed itself to contain nothing more than hazardous than pictures of Central Park.

"I'm not seeing any porn yet," I said with glee. "Just lots of pictures of oak trees and ugly stock background images."

"I _know_ she has porn on there," Shaw said, but now she sounded less confident.

"Uh-huh," I said as I double-clicked a directory named "anthropology report". "You know, I was thinking, you'd look great in tights and—_oh_. Oh, boy."

For several seconds, all I could do was stare at the monitor. I couldn't even move my fingers to close the window. My face felt incredibly warm.

_Aww, shit_, I thought. _I'm in for it now. _That thought was quickly followed by, _Eww! Gross!_

"What'd you find?" Shaw said, sounding very eager. "I want descriptions."

"Uh..." I sighed. "Andrea seems to be into Asian dudes with really long—"

"Hah!" Shaw said. For once, she sounded excited. "I win."

My curiosity got the better of me. I couldn't help but scroll down. My God, there were a _lot_ of images, and they seemed to get worse the further down I scrolled in the list.

"Ugh," I groaned.

"What is it?" Shaw said.

"Penises," I said. "Lots of penises. It's the creepy cheesy kind of porn where the guy has an arm for a dick and the girl is a bimbo with inflataboobs. Super unrealistic and kinda offensive."

"You sound like a porn snob," Shaw pointed out playfully.

I finally had enough presence of mind to close the window.

"I like _good_ erotica," I said, leaning back again and crossing my arms. "I have standards."

"Same," Shaw said. "Andrea deserves better pornography. Maybe after we save her life, you can make some bookmarks mysteriously appear on her computer."

"Maybe," I mumbled. "I'll just clone her drive for now..."

"Okay," Shaw said. "In the meantime, I'll just be plotting your future outfit. I've always liked sombreros. And cowboy boots."

_I'm a moron_, I thought to myself. _Why did I agree to a bet?_

The clone process took only five minutes—there wasn't very much data on the drive, and since it was solid-state, the files copied very fast. I spent a few minutes exploring the rest of the apartment, peeking into some of the kitchen cabinets and the bedroom closet. I saved her dresser drawers for last. There was nothing particularly outrageous anywhere in the apartment—not that I was fit to judge.

Pot and kettle, all that.

I didn't find a weapon of any sort. There was no evidence that pointed to Andrea becoming a future victim or perpetrator. When I finally slipped back out the front door, I took only the data on my flash drive to analyze later.

I headed down the stairs and out the side entrance of the apartment building. Shaw was waiting in the car, which she had parked across the street. She wasn't exactly grinning when I got into the passenger's seat, but she definitely seemed more cheerful than usual and I was pretty sure I saw a tiny smile, even if it was just for a second.

"I'm never making a bet with you again," I said as soon as I had pulled the door shut.

"You haven't even seen what I'm going to have you wear," Shaw said.

"And just what _are_ you gonna have me wear?" I said, shuffling my shoes against the floorboards. I wasn't really sure I wanted to hear the answer.

"I haven't decided yet."

"I swear, if it's Hello Kitty again—"

"Now you're just giving me ideas," Shaw said. She started the engine.

I pouted all the way back to my apartment.

The rest of the afternoon went by quickly. At my apartment, I picked through some of the files on the disk image of Andrea's computer—discovering three more poorly-hidden stashes of sub-par and degrading pornography in the process—until I found an angry email from one of her co-workers at the call center. Andrea had deleted it, but the operating system hadn't overwritten the file; it'd just marked it as not in use. Shaw called John and they went out and did their thing, somehow getting the guy arrested on drug charges, and an hour later, Andrea was safe, if not a little shaken from her near-death experience with the hit woman the guy had paid to kill her.

There wasn't much time to think about the little bet at Andrea's apartment until later that evening.

_Oh my God_, I thought to myself as I changed into my favorite green cotton pajamas and fixed myself my nighttime tea. _I can't believe I made a bet with Shaw._ I was nervous, but at the same time, I was kinda curious to see what kind of hilariously awful outfit Shaw would come up with for me.

_Combat boots?_ I thought. _Hmm, she loves hinting at me wearing leather. A jacket? Leather pants? Ugh. And she mentioned a sombrero—maybe she'll find some kind of crazy hat._

I crawled into bed, turned out the lights, and considered the possibilities, coming up with more and more absurd permutations until I finally fell asleep.

#####

_Author's note: I have severe writer's block on Feature Creep. This story idea was a suggestion from carolinagirl919. M'dear, you have created a monster..._

_Also, to my dear reviewers: this is my first smut. Please be nice. D:_

_Thanks to SWWoman for beta!_


	2. Chapter 2

#####

The next morning, I was awoken by the sound of my burner phone buzzing against the nightstand. I felt around for the phone without opening my eyes, flipped it open, and held it to my ear.

"Is somebody about to die?" I mumbled into the pillow. "'Cause I haven't had my beauty sleep."

"It's nine-thirty," Shaw pointed out.

"Too early." But I opened my eyes anyway. My bedroom was aglow with morning sunlight. I levered myself up in bed and brushed hair out of my eyes. "What's up? We got a case?"

"We got a case," Shaw confirmed. "Well, a couple of cases. John and Finch are doing the heavy lifting, but we have an assignment for you."

"Assignment?" I asked.

"Yeah. Our latest Number, Jackie Reed, works at a little software studio..."

"...and I'm going undercover?" I said, perking up.

"Yep. Nothing too risky—just get to know her, make sure she doesn't get into too much trouble, figure out what she's working on, the usual."

"Awesome," I said, tossing the sheets aside. I leapt to my feet, all remnants of sleep fading away, and grabbed the bathrobe from the back of my desk chair, slipping one arm into a sleeve. I switched the phone to my other hand.

"I'll be over there in a few minutes with your temporary identity," Shaw said. "And your outfit."

I froze, the bathrobe hanging from one shoulder, when I heard the word _outfit_. Yesterday's events flashed before my eyes.

_Aww, crap, _I thought. _That stupid bet. She's not doing that _today, _is she?_

"Outfit?" I said, trying to sound as casual as possible.

"Yep." Shaw sounded unusually pleased. "You lost the bet, remember?"

I chewed my lip. "You know I have to blend in at the studio, right?"

"Don't worry," Shaw said, but the way she said it made me worry _more_. "Nobody will be able to tell the difference—if you can keep it together."

_What on Earth is _that_ supposed to mean? _"Wait, what—"

"Be there in a bit. Bye now."

There was a _click_ as she hung up.

I grumbled and finished wrapping the robe around my body, then padded out to the kitchen to fix myself tea. The knock at my door came just as I finished pouring the hot water into my cup. I turned around to see that Shaw was already in my apartment, rapping on the _inside_ of my front door. She had a paper bag hanging from the crook of her arm.

"Cute," I said, raising an eyebrow.

"You told me to knock more often," Shaw said. "But you didn't tell me which side of the door I had to be on."

I rolled my eyes and reached for the jar of honey on the counter. "Make yourself at home."

Shaw sat at the dining room table and set the bag on the floor. I added a healthy dollop of honey to my tea and sat down next to her.

"So," I said. "Who am I gonna be? And what am I wearing?" I eyed the paper bag. I couldn't see what was inside it, and that made me nervous. The bag wasn't very large. It was plain and brown and somewhat terrifying.

Shaw's mouth quirked into a smirk as she reached inside the bag. She was being all secretive about it, making a big show about rustling around inside before she pulled out a wallet. She tossed it to the table in front of me. "Maria Muller," she said. "Finch says you can use this one in the future if the case goes well. You're a junior developer at Trisoft." From the bag, Shaw produced a thin document and handed it to me. "Here's your life history."

"Awesome," I said, flipping through it. I skimmed the major details—UCLA grad, been in New York for two years, born and raised in Sacramento. Fluent in Java, C, C#, and Python, experienced with Maeven, good with Linux, etc. No family, few friends. The usual likes and dislikes, with the addition of "lousy pornography" as a dislike.

"So..." I gulped and nodded towards the bag. "Come on, get it over with. What's in there?"

"It'd be more fun if you guessed," Shaw said.

"Seriously?" I said, tiling my head.

"Yeah."

My eyes went sideways and then, a split second later, I darted forward, making a grab for the bag. Shaw, however, was considerably more awake than I was, and therefore, was faster. She yanked the bag out of my reach.

"Cheater," she said, setting it on the other side of the table. "C'mon. Guess."

I crossed my arms. "You're enjoying this, aren't you?"

"Yep."

I rolled my eyes and said, "Okay. A T-shirt with something embarrassing written on it."

"Nope."

"Leather jacket."

"Considered it. Nope."

"Combat boots."

"Nope."

The smirk on Shaw's face was gradually getting wider and wider.

"Overalls?"

"Nope."

"A latex catsuit?"

"Uh-uh. I'd pay money to see you in that, but no."

"Aquarium heels."

Shaw raised an eyebrow. "I'd never do something so horrible to your feet _or_ to a fish. Nope. You're never gonna guess."

I was getting irritated now. "A suit to match John's."

"'Girl in a suit' doesn't have that same ring. Nope."

"A dress with embedded motion-activated LED lights."

"Sounds like something _you'd_ make, not me. Nope."

"A leash and collar."

"It'd suit you, but not today. Nope."

"A jetpack," I said, frustrated.

"You wish. Nope."

"Come _on_," I whined. "Just show me already."

"You're no fun at all," Shaw said. She picked up the bag and set it down right in front of me. My fingers trembled as I opened it and peered inside.

_The hell?_ I thought.

"Really?" I said, reaching down and picking up a pair of dark purple brief panties. They were soft to the touch but sturdy, and they were suspiciously _normal_; not far off from what I usually wore, although I preferred something looser, especially when sleeping. I liked the color. I held them up and looked at them front and back, trying to figure out why Shaw would want me to wear these. There were no variations in color, no text that would be splashed across my behind, no cutesy images that would end up positioned just above my womanhood.

In a way, I was relieved. I mean, if this is all Shaw wanted me to wear, this was _nothing._ I'd been worried that she was gonna have me wear something weird, like zebra-striped overalls. But somehow, I didn't think this was all there was to Shaw's little bet. It looked like she was having an awful hard time concealing the eagerness on her face...

"Okay, what's the big deal?" I said, waving the panties back and forth. "This is basically what I wear already."

"I know," Shaw said. "You didn't look deeper in the bag."

_Uh-oh_, I thought. _This isn't good_. I gave Shaw a wary look and then glanced down into the bag again. I saw another pair of panties, this time in dark green. I pulled them out and raised my eyebrows.

"Thought you might want a different color," Shaw said, shrugging. "Look again."

There was a small cardboard box, maybe six inches to a side, at the bottom of the bag. I picked it up with care and hefted it to try and figure out what was inside. It weighed maybe a pound, tops. Setting it on the table, I opened it.

And stared.

"_Shaw!"_ I yelled, sounding like a kid whose little brother wouldn't stop yanking on her pony tail. My face was flushed scarlet, I could _feel_ it. This was absurd. She wanted me to go around undercover with _this_?

"Yes?" Shaw said calmly.

I motioned to the box. "It's a _vibrator_."

Shaw leaned over to look. "Huh, wow," she said. "It _is_. Dang. Fancy that."

I was torn between glaring and laughing. "You want me to wear a freaking _vibrator_?"

"It's a _nice_ vibrator," Shaw said. She picked it up and turned it over in her hands. The device was rounded and completely smooth. It was dark blue, with a velvety sheen to it. The thing was about four inches long, an inch and a half wide, and about a half-inch thick throughout, except for the rounded bump near the top of the inner face and the molded protrusion further down. The toy curved gently inward; it was clearly made to nestle against my womanhood. It looked pretty innocent—except for the vaginal probe. It wasn't very large, but it left no doubt as to the function of the device.

If possible, I was blushing even harder now.

"These haven't even hit the shelves yet," Shaw said as she looked over the device. "Medical-grade silicon. Something something overspecced components. It's got wireless controls and uses an induction charger. Pretty neat—no cords at _all_. Totally waterproof. I don't think you could open it even if you wanted to. They put a pretty hefty battery in it—she said it has two motors, so it needs it—but it charges fast."

"And where did you manage to get your hands on this thing?" I said. Despite myself, I was _very_ curious.

"One of our past Numbers is co-owner of the company that makes these," Shaw said. "We saved her life and she was thankful. This is one of their prototypes. Don't worry—she's not expecting it back. She wouldn't mind some feedback though."

"Holy cow," I said. Shaw handed me the toy and I examined it. It _felt_ expensive, nice and solid, but still on the light side. I wiggled the probe back and forth; it was slightly flexible. On the outer face of the device, there was a power button and two smaller buttons, one labeled with the number one, the other with the number two. I pushed the power button. The button glowed blue, but the device remained inert until I pushed one of the other buttons. The power button turned orange and the toy started to buzz in my hand. I was impressed. It was almost silent. A little experimenting revealed that the buttons controlled the levels and patterns for the two motors, one in the base under the nub and one in the probe.

"Damn," I said. "Pretty powerful for such a little thing."

"They make good stuff," Shaw said.

I pushed the power button again. The buzzing stopped and the power button turned blue. Holding it down made the light go out entirely.

"You said it's wireless?" I said. "Where's the remote?"

Shaw shrugged. My eyes narrowed. Suddenly, all the pieces clicked.

"_Oh_," I say. "Seriously? What are you gonna do, follow me around all day? What's the range on this thing?"

Shaw shrugs again. "We'll find out. Unless you're too nervous."

I chewed my lip and considered the device in my hands. Okay, I had my doubts about this. I mean, I was a pretty private person when it came to sex, and the idea of walking around in public all day with this little bundle of joy in my panties was more than a little weird. But at the same time...the thought was startlingly erotic.

My body was certainly excited about the idea, and the more I thought about it, so was I.

Besides, if things got too weird, I could always take it out.

"You know it's really awkward if I orgasm while talking to our Number, right?" I said.

"That's part of the fun," Shaw said. "Don't worry, I won't turn it up that high. At least, not too often."

I felt myself blushing again.

_Eh, what the hell,_ I thought. _Life's short._

"Okay," I said. "We'll give it a shot."

"Go get dressed," Shaw said. "Don't forget to turn it on. The blue light means it's in wireless mode."

I double-check the bottom of the bag, just to see if there was something in there I missed, like a cape or maybe a top hat. "No other clothing requirements, huh?" I said.

"Well, if you really _want_ me to make decisions for you, I found this great Hello Kitty blouse with glittery—"

I stuck my tongue out, grabbed the vibrator and the pair of purple panties, and headed for the bedroom to get dressed.

One I had the door locked behind me, I stripped—noting with amusement that I was already wet—then stepped into the new panties. They were very soft and comfortable, really well made, but they were also on the tight side and I wasn't used to that. For the first time, I noticed that there was a little pouch on the inner surface, probably to help hold the toy in place. I didn't think it would take much to keep it where it belonged, not with the probe inside me.

I peeked in the mirror after donning the underthings. I had to admit, the panties complimented my body well. Maybe I'd start wearing these every once in a while...

Picking up the vibrator, I sat down on the bed and pushed the power button. It glowed blue, flashing once. I gulped.

_Well, here goes nothing..._I thought.

I pulled down the panties just enough to get the vibrator in place. Spreading my lips gently with my fingers, I worked in the probe until the smooth plastic device was nestled against my body.

_Holy cow,_ I thought. _It's like it was fitted for me_. The little nub and the probe were rubbing against all the right spots. I pulled up the panties and, after making sure the vibrator was tucked into its little pouch, stood up and walked around. The toy stayed where it was supposed to, held in place by the panties and the probe inside my body; it certainly wasn't going anywhere on its own. Feeling giddy, I stepped in front of the mirror again. There was a noticeable bulge now, but I wasn't expecting anybody else to see me in my underthings today, so that was okay with me.

I took care to pick a skirt that was a little longer than usual, just to be on the safe side.

I dressed quickly, putting on the patterned blue-and-white skirt and a short-sleeved white blouse, sparing only a few minutes for makeup and hair-taming. Every movement made the inert device in my panties rub against my body, a constant reminder of its presence. I was already starting to feel a little hot and bothered—and it hadn't even been turned on yet!

I stuck the usual trio of bobby pins into my hair and stopped in front of the mirror one last time for a final once-over. I looked...pretty much like I always did, except I was blushing. There was absolutely no way anybody else could tell I was walking around with a vibrator nuzzling my intimates.

And that made the whole thing even more exciting, in a sort of sneaky, gleefully inappropriate way.

I stepped out of the bedroom to see Shaw still sitting at the kitchen table. She was messing with something on her cell phone, but when I entered, she looked up.

"Is it comfortable" she asked.

"Yeah," I said, shifting my weight from foot to foot. "It almost feels like it was molded for my body. It's shaped just right."

"Cool," Shaw said, and she started messing with her cell phone again.

"So, uh," I said, suddenly feeling coy, "when are we going to test the _OH_ _god!"_ My knees buckled inward and my hands shot down between my legs. "_Oh-ho_, wow—!"

"Ooops," Shaw said. "I meant to start on the lower setting." She swiped something on her phone, and a moment later, the vibrator slowed to a sedate buzz. "How's that?"

"I—holy cow—" Even on the lower speed, the sweet sensations stemming from my nether regions were very insistent. I forced myself to stand up straight and keep my hands away from my body.

"Oh, wrong motor too," Shaw said. "That one's the clit vibe." She tapped the screen again, and suddenly the sensations shifted, becoming less focused and poignant as the motor in the probe inside me took over. I had to brace myself against the couch. My arousal was already beginning to smolder, like a campfire at dawn, just waiting to be stoked into life. It felt wonderful, but I had my reservations.

"I dunno if I can go an entire day like this," I said nervously, squirming. I mean, even turned down, the vibrator had quite a kick. While I usually liked that, I didn't think I'd like it for an entire workday.

"I'll turn it down lower and give you a break every once in a while," Shaw said. A second later, the device switched off entirely. "And if it gets too crazy, you can take it out in the bathroom. But I think you can outlast it."

"How long does the battery last?" I asked.

"Full speed? A few hours. Low speed?" She smirked. "Who knows."

I gulped. "Guess we'll find out."

Shaw consulted her phone again and said, "Well, it's go time. Grab your phone and shoes, Maria." She stressed my alias name just enough to remind me to get into character.

"All right," I said, taking a deep breath. "Let's go save the day."

#####

_Author's note: 53 pages and counting! Dang, this was supposed to be a one-shot. Don't worry. In the future, there WILL be __robots__ actual smut. Patience..._

_Thank you for all the warm reviews! It's very encouraging that people like where the story is headed so far..._


	3. Chapter 3

#####

The Trisoft office building was ten minutes away by subway. Shaw and I caught the tram just before it left and we sat down. The subway car was sparsely occupied; there was an old lady across the aisle with a newspaper in her hands, a young woman engrossed in her cell phone a few seats over to my left, a group of men on my right, past Shaw, and an older man down at the other end of the car.

After the subway left the station, Shaw pulled out her cell phone. I didn't really notice what she was doing, not until the vibrator buzzed into life.

"Oh!_" _I gasped, jerking in my seat. Shaw didn't look up from her phone, but I could see her smirking. The lady across the aisle glanced up at me. I hoped I wasn't blushing too much.

"Uh—something just occurred to me," I said to Shaw, making sure it was loud enough for the lady to overhear over the roar of the subway.

"I'll bet it did," Shaw mumbled.

The lady looked back down at her newspaper.

"You're an ass," I whispered to Shaw, but I was grinning.

"Here's what the app looks like," she said, tilting the phone towards me. It was deceptively simple. I saw two gauges that looked kind of like tachometers, and above them, there was a sliding menu to select a program—both motors were both on "continuous", but only the left gauge, the one for the vaginal vibrator, was above zero, at about 20%. There was also a huge button labeled "pause" at the bottom.

"Fancy," I said.

"Yeah, and it's really easy to use. Watch this." She put her finger on one of the tachometers.

"No, wait," I whispered, "not here!"

She dragged her finger clockwise around the gauge, and like magic, the device between my legs began to buzz harder. I pressed my legs together and gritted my teeth, forcing down the moan I wanted to make so badly. _Damn_, that felt good! My fingers gripped the edge of the seat. Shaw let the vibrator run for a little while, then turned the motor back down. I couldn't help but be fascinated by how quickly the device responded—there was no latency between Shaw's finger moving on the screen and the reaction of the vibrator.

"How's it feel?" Shaw whispered.

"I'm glad it's a gift," I whispered back, "because I wouldn't return it even if it wasn't."

Shaw smirked and said, "Good. Now, shouldn't you be reading your life history?"

"Right," I muttered, fumbling around in my purse for the papers. The vibrator continued to purr away between my thighs.

"Uh—aren't you going to turn it off?" I asked.

"Not yet," Shaw said.

She left the damn thing running on low for most of the subway ride. It made it kinda hard to focus on reading my life story and background info on the Number. Fortunately for me, the level of stimulation stayed at merely "distracting"–vaginal stimulation didn't get me off very easily. All it did was make me horny.

I was definitely feeling pretty damn horny already.

_This is either an awesome idea or a horrible one,_ I thought to myself as we disembarked. _Not sure which_._ Guess I'll find out!_ Shaw had turned off the toy, but my body still tingled with pleasure.

We walked a block from the downtown subway station and ended up in front of a five-story brick building. The Trisoft logo was etched in white on the glass front doors.

"Okay," Shaw said. "Have fun."

"Where are you going?" I said.

"I'll be around," Shaw said. "Jackie hangs out at a bar a few blocks away. Gonna check it out."

"Okay," I said, even as I wondered, _does the phone app even work that far?_

"Don't worry, I'll still be with you," Shaw said, right as the toy pulsed into life for a brief second. I gasped and glared at her. She waved the phone and then headed down the sidewalk, mingling with the pedestrians.

The glare slowly turned into a smile—I couldn't help it. Shaking my head, I pulled open the glass front doors and headed into the building. It was dim inside. Little halogen spotlights in strategic places lit up the walkway and the brick walls. The place had that old-building smell, tinged just slightly by the scent of warm electronics.

I walked up to the front desk. The receptionist, a young, sharply-dressed Chinese man, looked up at me with a polite smile. _Does he know_? I thought. _Can he tell_? For a brief, paranoid instant, I wondered what he'd do if he called me out on the device in my panties. Then logic caught up and I realized that there was absolutely no way he could know about the vibrator. It was my little secret and mine alone.

That thought was strangely arousing.

I introduced myself. The receptionist directed me to the fourth floor, where I was greeted by an older white woman named Alicia Sellers. She had shoulder-length black hair and a wide smile. She shook my hand and showed me around the office.

"We're real informal here," she said. "No ties for us!" Looking around, I saw that she wasn't kidding; some of the developers looked almost like they were wearing pajamas. Each developer had his or her own desk, and the desks were _wide_. The desks had at least two monitors each and a powerful mTech desktop slung in the footwell. Many of the desks were replete with personal items: pictures, stuffed animals, a bonsai tree, a model car, action figures, headphones, a joystick, books, snow globes, greeting cards, you name it. Nearly all of the desks had some sort of lamp to make up for the moody overhead lighting.

There was a cheerful, relaxed atmosphere about the place, like friends meeting after classes to study. People chattered softly amongst themselves and visited each other's desks. Even as I watched, one of the devs pushed her chair back from her desk, slid over to the person working next to her, and pointed out something on his screen. It looked like they were debugging a GUI application.

I liked this place. The atmosphere was much more enjoyable than at Landis.

"And here's your desk," Alicia said, motioning to an empty workstation. It looked strangely forlorn without any personal artifacts. "Someone will bring your login info in a bit."

"Cool, thanks," I said.

"We'll talk more after my meeting—I want to assign you to a project ASAP. In the meantime, feel free to talk with your new coworkers if they're not busy, get a feel for some of our projects. Now, any questions? No? Okay, I gotta run. Welcome to the team, Maria. "

She shook my hand again and then she was off, weaving her way between the desks towards the stairs. I sat down at my desk. The movement made the vibrator shift against my body.

_Oh yeah,_ I thought, looking down. _I forgot about that. _I looked around, wondering if anyone had noticed anything amiss—and then I chuckled as I realized how absurd the thought was. I had to keep reminding myself: nobody else knew. I was in the middle of a room filled with at least thirty other people and not one of them knew I had the little device down there, just waiting to spring into action upon a signal from Shaw's phone.

It was a strangely tantalizing thought.

"...hello?" said someone to my left. I jumped and rotated my chair to face the newcomer. She had wheeled over on her chair from the desk behind and to the left of mine. "Anybody home?" she said, smiling.

"Sorry, daydreaming," I said. I held out my hand. "Maria Muller."

"Hi," she said, shaking my hand. "I'm Jackie."

_Perfect_, I thought, pleased. I wondered if it was coincidence that my desk was next to Jackie's, or if Shaw had somehow managed to pull a few strings.

Jackie Reed was small, but not skinny. She had very curly brown hair, cropped to within an inch of her head. Her skin was a rich, deep brown. She was wearing a teal T-shirt, a white skirt, short red socks, and Converse sneakers. Silver hoop earrings dangled from her ears.

"So you're the new girl," Jackie said. "Did Alicia show you around yet?"

"Yeah, she did, kinda," I said. "But she said to ask you about the projects Trisoft is working on."

"Pull up a chair," she said, motioning me towards her desk. Together, we gathered around her monitor. "There's like, twenty different things we're working on," she said. "The one I'm spending most of my time on is our flagship package, GoldViz."

The name sounded familiar, but I couldn't quite place it. "What's GoldViz?" I said.

"Network topography modeling and simulation," Jackie said. "It's a set of huge, ugly Java programs. We're trying to refactor them into something sane, but it's starting to look like GoldViz 2 should just be written from scratch."

"That bad, huh?" I said.

"Well—look for yourself." She opened up a file browser on one of her monitors, switched to a project directory, and then opened the source code directory. I saw several thousand files.

"Jesus," I whispered. "No subpackages or anything?"

Jackie patted me on the shoulder. "I'll be your grief counselor for the first week."

I laughed. "How much does the company charge for this—mess?"

"$1999 per seat for a production license."

"Oww," I said, wincing.

"Pays the bills, at least."

"So," I said, motioning to the monitor, "is this what I'm gonna be working on?"

"Might be," Jackie said. "But I hear the boss is looking for someone that can grok enough Python to write the bindings for the plugin system we've always wanted for—"

Without any warning, the vaginal vibrator kicked on. I twitched and blinked, hoping frantically that Jackie hadn't noticed it, but unfortunately, she had.

"Are you okay?" she said.

"Y-yeah," I said, trying to sound as dismissive as possible. "I—just have a twitch, that's all."

In my cell phone earpiece, I heard what sounded distinctly like a snicker. I ignored it.

Jackie seemed blissfully unaware. "Well—anyway," she said. "If you know Python, you'll probably be working on the plugin system."

"Sounds great," I said, trying to ignore the sensations radiating out from my nether regions. I wasn't doing too well. _Damn!_ I thought. _How'd she activate it? Either she's nearby or that thing has a crazy range._

"What other projects are there?" I said. I laced my fingers together in my lap and tried to focus on something, anything besides the toy buzzing between my legs.

"Well, there's the server monitoring package, Panopticon. That's 'my' project, really." Jackie made air quotes and chuckled. "That codebase is in better shape, and—"

The vibrator began to buzz harder. There was nothing I could do about the gasp, but I masked it as quickly as possible by acting like I had been surprised. "_Oh_," I said. "I get it now. _Panopticon_. Ha-ha." I hoped I didn't sound too breathless. "The name. I totally get it."

"Yeah!" Jackie said. "I like the name. It describes the project well, I think."

"Sure does," I said, forcing a smile to my face. My body was reacting of its own accord to the vibrations. A tingling sensation was spreading outward from my loins and I was starting to feel very warm. I was glad I was wearing a loose blouse. I forced my legs together and tried not to fidget.

"...might assign you to the VPN software too," Jackie was saying. "I hope not though. The guy in charge of that project?" She hesitated, then said, "Uh, let's just say he thinks he's better at programming than he is."

"I know the type," I said tightly.

Jackie suddenly looked over my shoulder and grinned. "Ah, here comes Zachariah," she said. "He's got your login."

Trying to move as little as possible, lest I jostle the vibrator, I turned the chair just enough to see the young white man rushing up to us.

"Sorry, Jack," he said, panting. "This morning has been _crazy_."

"That's okay, Zach," Jackie says. "Here, meet our new junior dev, Maria."

We shook hands. I looked him straight in the eye and smiled tightly and wondered if he could tell that I had a vibrator running in my panties right now. He didn't seem to notice anything unusual. He gave me a piece of paper with a username and password on it, and like that, he was gone, running like crazy towards the lift, slipping between the sliding doors just before they closed.

"Zach and Jack, huh?" I said. "That sounds like it could get confusing,"

To my relief, the vibrator turned itself down a notch, but even at the lower speed, it was pretty damn distracting.

"Yeah, it can be confusing," Jackie said with a laugh. "It's kinda an office joke." She glanced at the paper in my hands. "That looks like your login. Want me to help you get online, or do you think you can do it yourself?"

"I'll try it myself," I said. "Thanks."

"Sure," Jackie said. "Look through the portal for some FAQ docs. Lemme know if you need help."

I wheeled back over to my desk, but before I tried logging in to my computer, I pulled my cell phone out of my skirt pocket and ran the cloning app against Jackie's cell. The phone thought for a few seconds and then spat out an error message. Either Jackie's phone was off or she was more careful than most in configuring her phone to not absolutely suck at security.

_Well, that's disappointing_, I thought. I pocketed the cell phone and brought up the login prompt on the office computer. _Going through the contents of peoples' phones is fun, especially if they're big on sexting..._

"Is it just me, or is Finch's little cloning tool failing more often these days?" I whispered as I entered my temporary password.

"It's not just you," Shaw said through my earpiece. "He says the something something Bluetooth something heap driver thingies on the newer phones are giving him problems. He's actually not sure he can get around them. So you couldn't get into her phone?"

"Nope," I said.

"Oh well. Speaking of wireless things, how's the vibrator?"

"It's super distracting," I whispered, glancing down at my skirt and shifting my legs.

"Are you having fun?"

I glanced around the office while the computer processed my login. Try as I might, I couldn't hold back the little grin. "Yeah, I am. I'm doing something that would totally make Mama blush and nobody can tell. It's a really weird feeling. Just—go easy with it, okay?"

"Don't worry," Shaw said, and once again, the way she said it made me immediately start worrying. "I'll be gentle. For example, I won't do _this_ very often."

A split second later, the clit vibe switched itself on, and that was _not_ low speed. I yelped.

"_Shaw_!" I whispered as quietly as possible. "Turn it off!"

"You okay?" floated Jackie's voice from behind me.

"Yeah," I said louder, grimacing. "Static shock, you know? Rolling chairs and carpet and all that. It just surprised me."

"Oh. Okay!"

A second later, Shaw turned the clit vibrator off, but the plug in my vagina continued to buzz sedately.

"Fuck you," I whispered, scowling.

"More like I'm fucking _you_," Shaw said. She sounded rather cheerful about it. "I have to admit, your excuses are hilarious."

"Don't make me come up with too many of them!" I said.

"I'll keep it down," Shaw said. "Don't want your new coworkers getting suspicious of the twitchy new girl. Also, I'd rather have you totally horny when you get back to the apartment tonight. Which is why I'm leaving the motor on low for the next hour."

"_Seriously_?" I stared down at my crotch. "You call that _low_?"

"Well...I can be nice and turn it down a little more..._if _you bake more cookies tomorrow."

"Twisting my arm, are we?" The computer's web browser popped up, prompting me to enter a permanent password. I made up a lazy, insecure password and typed it in twice—sadly, I probably wouldn't be back here after this case was over.

"Well, it's not that hard to get you to do it," Shaw said, "because you like to eat your cookies too."

"Fine," I muttered.

"With extra chocolate chips?"

"For you?" I said sweetly. "_Anything_."

Shaw snorted, but a few seconds later, the vibrator turned itself down until it was little more than a purr.

"I'll just leave it like that all day when I'm not playing with the dials," Shaw said.

_Great_, I thought. _I'm so gonna be climbing up the wall by the time I get home_.

"How are you doing that, anyway?" I asked. "Are you in the building?"

"Nope," Shaw said. "You have the remote in your pocket."

_In my pocket-?_ I thought. _What's she getting on about_? I felt around in my pocket, but there didn't seem to be anything but my cell phone—

_My cell phone! That's how she's doing it! She's sending commands through my phone!_

I quickly took it out again and unlocked it. Sure enough, there was a new app down at the bottom of the menu, but when I tried opening it, I was asked for a password.

"I'll give you the password after this case," Shaw said. "You can change it later, just in case you want to have a little fun on your own. Now, shouldn't you be working? Or do you need a little...incentive?"

I dropped the cell phone back into my pocket, scooted my chair a little closer to the desk, and started exploring the company portal, as the little toy buzzed merrily away...

#####

_Author's note: I really want one of those. Did I mention that already?_

_Poor Ellie. As one reviewer said, she's gonna be a mess when she gets home._

_Thank you all for the lovely comments! I'm glad y'all enjoying the story. Critique welcome!_


	4. Chapter 4

#####

For the next hour, little else happened. Shaw varied the speed of the vibrator whenever she felt like it, occasionally switching on the clit vibrator to get my attention. It wasn't even noon yet and I was already incredibly horny. But the vaginal vibrator wasn't anywhere near powerful enough to get me off, at least not the way Shaw had set it. So at least I didn't have to worry about have an orgasm in the middle of the office...unless Shaw decided to turn up the vibrator up really high.

A part of me still couldn't believe I'd decided to go through with wearing the thing, but as time went on, I found myself thinking about that less and less because the vibrator felt so darn good. Dear god, it felt _amazing_. Unlike with some of my other toys, the vibrations from the compact device were substantial and satisfying even on its lower settings, not buzzy or weak. The toy nuzzled my body in all the right places, and yet at the same time, it spread out the sensations over a wider area, evoking a delightful sensation of pleasure throughout my intimates without being too overpowering. When turned down low, it was the perfect toy to let my arousal simmer and smolder.

When it was turned up high..._well!_ Let's just say I couldn't wait to get home tonight so Shaw and I could rev it up to eleven. But the end of the work day was hours away. Right now, there were only two things for me to do: keep track of Jackie and explore the documentation on the company portal. Jackie was safely absorbed in her project, so that left the documentation.

Most of the docs were about as exciting—and comprehensible—as reading a VCR instruction manual. In Mandarin. Backwards. I was hoping to find something useful among the docs, like login credentials to company servers, but so far I hadn't found anything.

Every once in awhile I took a break from the riveting, well-written, typo-free documentation on coding standards and email etiquette and instead consulted "Maria's" resume. I wanted to make sure I could keep track of which programming languages and technologies I "knew" and which ones I didn't. _I_ was familiar with many of the popular programming languages, libraries, frameworks, IDEs, compilers, debuggers, operating systems, and network protocols, but Maria was supposed to know only a few of them. So every once in awhile, I pulled the resume out of my purse, which I had tucked into the footwell of my desk, and I skimmed the resume to remind myself that I didn't know anything about, for example, OpenGL graphics programming—no matter how loudly two nearby developers were asking each other questions about OpenGL that I could've answered in a heartbeat.

_No, no, no!_ I thought to myself, cringing, as one of the developers blurted out the wrongest solution possible. _It's not a vertex attribute!_ _You want to use a uniform matrix instead. Oh, forget it..._

As I put the resume back into my purse, my fingers brushed something cold and metal: my pistol. I was hoping I wouldn't need it today. I hadn't had to pull it out on a case for nearly two weeks now, and the last two times I'd had to brandish it, the threat had been enough to make the perp stop whatever he'd been doing.

I hoped third time wasn't the charm.

Sighing, I went back to my computer and resumed reading the document describing the company's source code management system. This particular document was rife with typos and hideous illustrations that had probably been doodled by a five-year-old. Fortunately, I didn't have to read much of it; I heard footsteps behind me a few minutes later.

"Maria?" said Alicia. "Glad to see you're reading our web portal."

"Yeah," I said. "Lots of good stuff here."

I was getting pretty good at lying through my teeth.

"Good, good. Hey, let's get you set up with a project. Jackie says you two talked about some of the—"

The vibrator sped up. Of _course_ it sped up while I was talking to my new boss. By some miracle, I managed to keep my reaction to little more than sitting up straighter.

"—says you know Python and C?"

"Oh, yeah," I said. "Jackie mentioned you wanted some sort of Python-based plugin system. Sounds, uh, interesting."

"Let's start you with that, then," she said. "Actually—" She consulted her watch. "David, one of our senior developers, came up with the idea, but he's swamped with other things so he wants one of the junior devs to write it. I think he's free for a little while. Come on, I'll show you his office."

I grabbed my purse and stood with care, levering myself up with the chair and desk because my knees were feeling kinda wobbly. I followed Alicia across the office.

"Hey," Shaw said suddenly over the phone, "I have to start a bar fight. I'll be back in a bit. In a meantime, I'm putting the vibe on random mode."

I just barely had time to think, _Random mode? _before the vibrator suddenly accelerated. I stumbled in surprise and just barely managed not to run into a support column. As I regained my footing, the vibrator abruptly slowed, then sped up again.

_Oh, great_, I thought. _Great timing! _Great_ timing!_

Alicia hadn't noticed my passable imitation of a modern dance performance, so I caught up to her and tried to act like I didn't have a sex toy going nuts of its own accord in my panties. She led me down a hallway to a series of open offices and motioned me inside.

"David," said Alicia, "this is our new junior developer, Maria. Maria, this is David. He's responsible for our current plugin architecture. I'll leave you two to talk."

David was a short, portly white man, with a thinning mop of white hair and a mustache. He had this cheerful look about him, despite the piles of paperwork stacked in the inbox on his desk. He smiled, we shook hands, and then we started talking about program architecture and modularity and language bindings. All the while, the vibrator was changing its speed of its own accord, sometimes running slow, sometimes running fast (thankfully, not _too_ fast—I wondered if Shaw had put some sort of upper limit on it), but never staying at one speed for very long. It made it impossible to concentrate on what David was saying, and to make matters worse, David's office was really _quiet_, unlike the bustling main office area, and every once in a while, when the vibrator felt like turning itself up higher, I could hear it faintly over the air conditioning.

And I was pretty sure David could too.

"I was thinking that we could have a plugin API that matches a subset of the C API we already have," he said. "I know it's a lot of functions, but it's what we've got."

The vibrator turned itself down low.

"Python does support overloading," I pointed out. "We could use that to reduce the number of functions."

"I like the way you think. But that'd mean we'd have a different way of calling functions in C and Python. The devs are already used to having a different function name for different argument types in C, so—"

The vibrator accelerated sharply. I choked down the gasp, squirming in my seat. David didn't seem to notice.

"—want to preserve the API. Think you can do it?"

"Yeah," I said. My voice came out higher-pitched than I had intended. "Sorry," I said, faking a cough. "It makes sense. Otherwise we have a bunch of different APIs floating around."

The vibrator settled down to a purr again, and I relaxed. _Come on, Shaw!_ I said. _This is getting kinda awkward!_

"Good, good," David said. "Now, I was thinking we should use Python 3 for this. 3 has been stable for a long time now, and since we don't have any Python code at all, we might as well start with 3 so we don't have to port it later."

The vibrator turned itself up again, and this time, with nobody talking, we could both hear it.

"Uh," David said, "is your phone...?"

"Shit, yeah," I said, pointing to the door behind me. "I'm just gonna—I'll be right back—"

"Sure, sure," David said, and I just about ran for the door. Thank goodness, no one was in the hall outside. I staggered down it a ways, leaned back against the wall, and gritted my teeth, forcing myself to breathe through my nose so I wouldn't moan aloud. My fingers trembled and clenched. Oh my god, the vibrator felt _incredible, _but there were other people here, dammit!

"Oh, hey," Shaw's voice clicked in my ear. "I'm back. I'll turn this down now."

I panted and sighed in relief as the toy throttled down.

"No more random mode," I said shakily as I walked back towards David's office on unsteady legs. "You can kinda hear it on the higher speeds."

"What, no 'How'd the bar fight go, Shaw?' No 'Did you get hurt?' Not even a 'Good job for keeping Leon from getting his teeth kicked in for the fifth time in three weeks?'"

"I'm sure I don't wanna see the other guys," I said. I paused mid-step. "But, seriously—you okay?"

"Yeah," Shaw said. "It was fun. I'll tell you about it later. I'll adjust the top speed for the random mode so it's not so loud...how's half sound for a max?"

"What's half like?"

The vibrations increased suddenly, then faded again. My legs trembled.

"That's half."

"Make it a third," I said. "Just—not all the time."

As I neared David's office, I slowed—I heard voices coming from inside. Moving quietly, I crept up beside the doorway to listen.

"...do you mean, a miscount?" David said. There was no response. He was probably on his phone.

"It's probably just a glitch in the license server," he said. "Did you check the transaction logs from yesterday?"

A pause as he listened.

"Look, I understand: we have twenty-nine licenses we can't account for. There's no need to get all snippy. I didn't write the licensing software; I inherited it barely two weeks ago, and if you think I've had time to audit a five-year-old set of JSP—"

Another pause.

"All right, all right!" David said. "I'll see if I can track down the problem and deal with it, but I've got a lot going on right now."

One last pause.

"Sure. I'll let you know." There was the sound of a phone being placed back onto its hook and then, quietly, a sigh.

_Interesting_, I thought. I waited a few seconds so it wouldn't look like I'd been eavesdropping, and then I stepped around the corner into David's office.

"Sorry 'bout that," I said. "My phone's been going nuts today."

"It's no problem," David said. He looked frazzled. "Where were we?"

We resumed our discussion about the plugin system. With the vibrator on low again, I could focus at least somewhat on the architecture he was describing. Shaw adjusted the speed from time to time—or maybe the toy was back on random—but it never turned itself up very far, and by now I was getting pretty good at hiding my surprise when it sped up. It was quite an accomplishment, really—too bad Shaw was the only other person who'd get to appreciate it.

We ended the impromptu meeting with another handshake and David suggested I get myself some lunch before having Jackie show me how to use the version control system and the bug tracker. I nodded and hightailed it out of the office, because Shaw picked that particular moment to turn the damn toy up again.

"I'm so glad I'm not a programmer," Shaw announced as I made my wobbly way back towards the main offices. "That conversation was drier than the Sahara."

"It was a code," I said. "He was discussing how to kill someone."

"I—really? He was?"

I giggled. "Yeah. It's a code language called 'gullible'."

In response, Shaw clicked on the clit vibe, and it felt like it was up pretty darn high. I stumbled against the wall. Fortunately, no one was around to witness it.

"Oh, _damn_," I whispered, clutching a large wad of my skirt with one hand. My legs wobbled and my hips were starting to move with a mind of their own, grinding against something invisible. "_Ohhh_. I can't wait to try this thing at home."

"I could be mean," Shaw said. "I could keep the password from you."

"What? No!"

"Eh, it's got manual controls anyway. But the app is more fun than those crappy buttons."

"Sure, whatever, can you turn it down already? I don't want to cum in the office! People will think somebody _died_!"

But she didn't turn it down. Arousal burned in my loins and the pleasure kept building—if Shaw didn't turn the vibrator off pretty soon, I was in deep trouble. I panted and squirmed and tried really, really hard to keep my hands where they belonged.

"It's fun teasing you," Shaw said. "Tell you what. I'll turn it down when you get to your desk."

"Come _on,_" I said. My body was beginning to tremble from head to toe. The heat in my nether regions was getting unbearable. "Turn it down."

"Sure. When you get to your desk."

Swearing under my breath, I walked along the wall, leaning against it for support. I had to focus on each step.

"One of these days," I whispered, "I'm swear, I'm gonna—"

Someone came around the corner at the end of the hallway. It was a young white man, maybe twenty-two, and he caught sight of me immediately.

"Hey, you okay?" he said.

"Yes, yes," I said. "Just—just resting. I get faint sometimes."

"You sure?" he said, stepping closer. "You look like you're in pain."

_In pain, trying not to moan in pleasure—guess they could be mistaken at a distance_.

Shaw had mercy at that moment—the toy ceased buzzing against my clit, although the vaginal vibrator kept going.

"Nah, I'm fine," I said, taking a deep breath. I pushed myself off the wall. I had a hard time balancing, but I managed it. I smoothed my skirt and said, breathlessly, "See? Thanks, though. Are you headed to see David?"

"Uh, no—I'm looking for the boss. See you around, I guess." He gave me a weird look and brushed past me. I sighed in relief—and then the toy began to vibrate against my clit again.

"Dammit, Shaw!" I whispered.

"Come on, you can make it," she said.

"I don't think I can," I said through gritted teeth.

"Fine, I'll turn it down a _little_."

The vibrator eased up. Shaw had turned it down more than a _little_, but the walk to my desk still felt very, very long. I didn't think my legs could support a feather, let alone my body—but a minute later, I collapsed into my chair, and as promised, Shaw turned the toy down to low.

I was irritated, but at the same time, I felt victorious...until I glanced at my computer clock.

It was only 12:32PM.

I groaned. This was going to be a _long_ day.

#####

_Author's note:_ _"Poor Ellie."_

_Forgot if I mentioned this, but teledildonics is a real thing, and there is in fact a vibrator that is controlled by a phone app. I believe it can also be controlled from a phone that isn't in the immediate vicinity (i.e., out of Bluetooth range) for a fee..._

_I can't help but wonder what sort of security the real-life implementation has, and if it can be hacked. If I had more time, I'd SO put Root into the story just to play with that idea..._

_Also, my beta is away, so typos are entirely my own._


	5. Chapter 5

#####

Lunch was a package of crackers and a bottle of cold tea from a vending machine by the lift. I scarfed down the food at my desk. A little while later, Jackie helped me navigate the source code filesystem and pointed out some files that were likely to contain code related to the plugin system I was supposed to be writing. In a way, I wished I was here to actually work—the assignment was interesting, and the existing plugin architecture was reasonably well-designed. But I wasn't here to work. I was here to keep an eye on Jackie. So after Jackie went back to her desk, I went through the motions of opening up an IDE and playing with a few source code files, but I made sure I didn't get too involved with the project. The last thing I needed was to go off on an oblivious programming trance and let Jackie slip away while I wasn't looking.

Fortunately, I was having a really hard time concentrating enough to get into a coding groove, because Shaw kept teasing me with the vibrator, turning it up and down on a whim and keeping me on edge. Every once in awhile, she turned it off, but it never stayed that way for very long.

The darn thing was starting to drive me nuts.

Don't get me wrong—I _really_ didn't want to orgasm in the middle of the office, so keeping the vibrator down low was a good thing. But on its lower settings, the toy was dastardly effective at teasing me and keeping me aroused without taking me over the edge, and it was getting kinda unbearable. I couldn't recall a time I'd ever been this horny. My fingers were trembling and I hardly could keep from squirming. I was feeling breathless and my skin was flushed. Worse, I was starting to daydream, fantasizing about returning to the apartment tonight with Shaw. I wondered how desperate I'd be by then. What would Shaw do? Would she pull out her phone and turn the vibrator up as soon as we were safely within the privacy of my apartment? Would she clutch me against her warm body as my legs went out from under me and I lost control, overwhelmed by the sweet vibrations from the device between my thighs? Or would she wait and draw it out yet further, coaxing me into the bedroom and stripping me of my clothing one garment at a time until I was left in nothing but the panties holding the toy snugly against and within me? Would she bind me to the bed and tease me, slowly increasing the vibrator's power, ever so _slowly_ as I whined and pleaded, until I was writhing helplessly in ecstasy? Would she—?

Something brushed my thigh. I looked down and realized that my own hand was creeping under my skirt. Gulping, I quickly straightened up and looked around, hoping nobody had seen anything.

I was glad that nobody was paying me close enough attention to notice anything odd going on. The desk to my left was unoccupied and the guy working to my right wore headphones and was thoroughly absorbed in his project. The clatter of keyboards, the hubbub of conversation, and the occasional _whir _of a printer all masked the little gasps and grunts I made whenever Shaw felt like playing with the knobs on her phone app.

I kept an eye on Jackie as I pretend to work by watching her reflection in a picture frame—there were a few large photographs near the edge of Mr. Headphone's desk, and I had rotated one just slightly when he had wandered off to the water cooler. _I wonder if she's a perp or a victim_? I thought to myself as I strung together a few random Python methods to make it look like I was doing something productive. (If I actually ran the code, it would blow out the stack and terminate the interpreter instantly—the functions all called each other, recursing infinitely.) _My gut says she's a victim, but...I've been wrong before._ I grimaced, thinking of the Panzer case._ If he'd pulled out the cleaver just a second earlier_—I shuddered.

"How's our girl?" Shaw's voice whispered in my earpiece.

"Fine," I said quietly, peering at her over my shoulder. Jackie was staring at her monitor, but her hands were in her lap, not on the keyboard. I squinted, trying to make out the text on the screen. It looked like she was using some kind of webmail app. "Looks like I'm not the only one not doing work," I said. A moment later, I jerked—Shaw was playing with her damn phone again. My fingers gripped the armrest like I was holding on for dear life and my toes clenched in the confines of my shoes.

"You're having way too much fun with this," I gasped, but truth be told, so was I. Oh my god, I was _so_ darn horny. But much as I wanted my release, I was glad Shaw kept turning the toy down. If I came here in the office, I wasn't sure I'd ever live it down. I wasn't an exhibitionist. This game was only fun as long as nobody else knew what was going on.

"Yes, I am," she said. The toy's speed stabilized at a level noticeably higher than it had been before. "Any luck finding info on her?"

"Not much," I said. "I was thinking of trying to crack the company mail server, but this place has pretty good security—I don't think it'll be easy."

"Hmm," Shaw said. "Well, I can't find anything interesting at the bar and Reese found nada at her place. I'll come hang out at TriSoft."

"Uh, you're not exactly a programmer," I whispered. "I hope you've got a copy of _Java for Dummies_ to study, 'cause you're gonna need it if you want to blend in and—_oooh!" _I sucked in a shaky breath and wriggled in my chair—the intensity of the vibrations had just gone clear through the roof.

"I hope you're not calling me a dummy," Shaw said. Her voice was dangerously silky.

"Okay, okay!" I whispered shakily. "I'm just _saying_, you need to blend in. Turn it down!"

"First, tell me that I'm brilliant."

"You're brilliant," I said without hesitation.

"That didn't sound very sincere."

"You're freaking Einstein with boobs," I said through gritted teeth. "Just not with computers. Now turn it down."

Shaw let me stew for a little longer, then reduced the speed of the vibrator to a more reasonable level.

"I'll be there soon," Shaw said.

"Wait!" I said.

"Yes?"

I chewed the inside of my lip. "Can you turn it down just a bit more?"

"No," she said. "But, if you _really_ want, I can put it on full random mode again now that you're someplace nosier."

"Uh, that's okay," I said hurriedly. "I can deal with it the way it is."

"If that's what you want," Shaw said.

I muttered dark things, took a deep breath, scooted closer to the keyboard, and did my best to ignore the dirty fantasies flickering before my eyes.

About ten minutes later, I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. I turned to see Shaw approaching from the lifts. She was wearing jeans, a gray shirt, and a thin black windbreaker. A pair of dark sunglasses were perched on her head. She had a little stun gun in a holster at her hip, and knowing her, she had at least one pistol somewhere on her body as well. Her outfit all but said "security", but at the same time, she looked low-key and unremarkable.

"Can I help you?" I said politely when she stopped in front of me, even though I really wanted to say something more like _you're an evil, evil woman, and I really want to fuck you when I get home tonight._

"Agent Harrison," Shaw said, flashing an FBI badge in my face. "Need to ask you a few questions."

"I don't even want to know where you got that," I said, nodding towards the badge.

"Yeah, you really don't," Shaw said, glancing around. She leaned against the edge of the unoccupied desk next to mine and crossed her arms. "How's it going with Jackie?" she said, quieter.

"Haven't found much," I said, shrugging. "No red flags yet." I rotated my chair so I could peer past Shaw and watch Jackie without being too obvious about it. "Huh. She's still staring at her monitor."

"What's she looking at?" Shaw said.

"Emails," I said. "She's been staring at the screen for like ten minutes."

For a minute or so, we watched Jackie. She didn't move much. Once or twice, her hands rested on the keyboard. Her fingers twitched, but she didn't type.

_My_ fingers were twitching too, but I was willing to bet that it was for an entirely different reason.

"You're fidgeting," Shaw whispered to me.

"I don't know what you're talking about," I said archly. Shaw patted my shoulder, but then her hand moved lower. Her fingers against my neck and down my spine. I shivered in delight, suddenly thinking very dirty things.

"You're going to fuck me after this, right?" I said.

"I'm an FBI agent," Shaw said, crossing her arms again. "I would never do such a thing to an informant."

"Uh-huh," I said. "Sure you wouldn't."

She moved closer and bent down to whisper in my ear.

"_However_," she said softly, "later tonight, I'll need to, ah, _examine_ the device you're carrying. For evidence purposes, of course."

"Good luck getting it away from me," I said, sticking out my tongue.

"If you don't give it up voluntarily, I might have to restrain you."

"Ooooh," I said. "Threat or promise?"

"Both. Definitely both."

I fought very hard to keep the grin off my face. My mind was going straight to the gutter, there was no stopping it, but fortunately, a distraction arose—Jackie. Without any warning, she stood up, not even bothering to push her chair back to her desk, and walked off towards one of the hallways that led deeper into the building.

"I'll keep an eye on her," Shaw said. "Think she's headed for the bathroom." Like a specter, she followed behind Jackie and vanished into the hallway, leaving me to pout.

_Huh_, I thought, eying Jackie's computer. It looked very lonely—and if I wasn't mistaken, she hasn't bothered to lock it before leaving. _I wonder..._

"Shaw," I said, "can you keep her occupied for like five minutes? I think she left her computer unlocked."

"Sure," Shaw said. A moment later, the vibrator slowed. Shaw had probably turned it down so I could concentrate.

I pushed my chair across the aisle and positioned myself in front of Jackie's keyboard. The only window up on the screen was a web browser, and all it displayed was a search engine prompt.

_Hmm_, I thought. _She was looking at emails...did she log out? Or just close the tab?_

There was nothing in her browser history. I tapped my foot against the base of the chair, thinking. Just for fun, I pressed the keyboard shortcut that re-opened the last browser tab closed. I was rewarded with Jackie's company email page.

"Oh, nice," I said. "I'm in her email account."

I glanced over my shoulder, looking as casually as possible around the office to make sure nobody was watching too closely. Then I started scrolling through the emails on the screen. Most of the emails were bug reports: for example, _Ticket #14456 opened: GoldViz 1.7.2 daemon crash on start_ or _Ticket #721 priority changed to Critical: Memory leak in VPN Server 7.3rc1_. But the latest email in her Sent folder was interesting:

_On November 9th, 2012, at 2:29 PM, jackie at trisoft. com wrote: _

_ To: fx59fdslkjas at webmail. com_

_ From: jackie at trisoft. com_

_ Subject: re: re: re: re: what's up?_

_ Forget it. I'm not working with you any more. I'll come clean if I have to. _

_ Just leave me alone. I'm not comfortable doing this._

_ On November 9th, 2012, at 2:15 PM, fx59fdslkjas at webmail. com wrote:_

_ » From: fx59fdslkjas at webmail. com_

_ » To: jackie at trisoft. com_

_ » We? What are you talking about, "we"? It's you, not "we". Remember who started this._

_ » On November 9th, 2012, at 2:11PM, jackie at trisoft. com wrote: _

_ »» To: fx59fdslkjas at webmail. com_

_ »» From: jackie at trisoft. com_

_ »» Subject: re: re: re: what's up?_

_ »» It IS a big deal. We might get noticed. They've been adding audit code to the server._

_ »» I don't know if I can get around it._

_ »» On November 9th, 2012, at 2:09 PM, fx59fdslkjas at webmail. com wrote:_

_ »»» From: fx59fdslkjas at webmail. com_

_ »»» To: jackie at trisoft. com_

_ »»» Subject: re: re: what's up?_

_ »»» You should really reconsider. It's not that big of a deal. _

_ »»» On November 9th, 2012, at 2:04PM, jackie at trisoft. com wrote:_

_ »»»» To: fx59fdslkjas at webmail. com_

_ »»»» From: jackie at trisoft. com_

_ »»»» Subject: re: what's up?_

_ »»»» I told you. I can't do it any more._

_ »»»» On November 9th, 2012, at 2:01 PM, fx59fdslkjas at webmail. com wrote:_

_ »»»»» From: fx59fdslkjas at webmail. com_

_ »»»»» To: jackie at trisoft. com_

_ »»»»» Subject: what's up?_

_ »»»»» Hey, I didn't hear back from you about my latest proposition. _

"Woah," I said. "Shaw, I think Jackie is being blackmailed. I'm taking some screenshots." I used my phone to snap a few pictures of the email thread, scrolled through the remaining emails to see if there was anything else interesting, then closed the email tab and wheeled back over to my desk.

Nobody had noticed.

"Okay," I said, "I'm done with her computer."

"Nice work," Shaw said. "She's headed your way. Send me the screenshots."

I attached the images to a text message and sent them her way. A few seconds later, Shaw said, "Wow. Nice find. I'll see if Finch can figure out who FX fifty-nine fadisjagulkishjas is."

"I think you mispronounced it," I said. "It's obviously 'fedishlikajas'."

"No, I really think it's 'fadisjgulkishjas'."

"Too many syllables. There's not that many vowels."

"However it's pronounced, he or she is clearly a dick," Shaw said. "Jackie was pretty upset in the bathroom. I asked her what was wrong and she said she was frustrated with a project."

Across the aisle, Jackie settled back into her chair without a word and went back to work on her computer. Her shoulders were hunched.

"Hmmm," I said. I stood up and walked down the row of desks a ways to be sure that Jackie wouldn't overhear me talking about her. As I walked, I scrolled through the screenshots on my phone. "One of the emails says something about audit code on a server. Did you hear what David was talking about earlier?"

"About the license thing?"

"Yeah. He said they have licenses they can't account for. Jackie said the licenses for one of their products are two grand a pop."

"Oof," Shaw said. "And how many licenses were there? Thirty-ish?"

"Sixty grand is a lot of money..."

"I'd murder for that," Shaw said.

"You told me once you'd murder for one of my cookies, so that means nothing."

"You can't prove that in court," Shaw said. I snickered.

I reached the end of the row of desks and turned around to find myself face-to-face with Zach.

"There you are!" he asked excitedly. "You're the new girl, right? We met earlier?"

"Uh...yeah?" I said, startled by how quickly he had come up behind me.

"Alicia wanted me to give you a demo on GoldViz. Mary—it's Mary, right? No? Meridth? Miranda?"

"Maria," I said, amused.

"Right, right, right. _Maria_. Sorry, mind's all over the place—"

As the young man babbled on, Shaw turned clit vibrator on low. I stumbled and leaned against the edge of a nearby desk for support. I was _not_ going to make a peep, no matter how nice it felt. I was just going to ignore the vibrations, really, I was. I was _not_ going to make a peep at _all_.

"—anyway, I'll show you the lab, it's _really_ cool, we use virtual machines for most of our testing—"

A moment later, Shaw's voice whispered in my ear. She sounded just a little too happy.

"Go ahead," she said. "I'll keep an eye on Jackie."

I followed Zach down the row of desks towards the lift. We made it about halfway there before I noticed that the vibrator was running a little faster than it had been before. With every step I took, it sped up even more. It wasn't long until my legs were wobbling and I couldn't walk straight. I tried to stay stoic, tried to ignore it, but there was just no way I could deny the effect the toy was having on my body.

Despite my best efforts, a quiet little moan slipped past my lips. Then another.

"_Ohh_!" I gasped. I couldn't help but stoop over. My hands went to my crotch by reflex.

_God_ _dammit, Shaw,_ I thought. The vibrator felt _soooo_ good. _Not here! Wait until I get home!_

"What's wrong?" Zach said, turning around. He approached me hesitantly, holding out his hand. "You okay?"

"I'm f-fine!" I gasped. I shifted my arms up a little higher so I wasn't grasping at my crotch. Instead, I made it look like I was clutching my chest. "Just stomach cramps, that's all. I had—I had p-pufferfish last night."

Shaw laughed out loud at that one. A second later, she turned the vibrator down again.

Zach looked concerned. "Do you need a doctor?" he said.

"N-no," I said. I was sure my face was an impressive shade of red. "Just need to—it'll pass—gotta catch my breath—"

Slowly, I stood up straight, making a big deal about cradling my chest and leaning against a desk. "See?" I said. "Feeling better already."

"You sure?" Zach said.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine."

Shaw's voice sounded in my ear. "Pufferfish poisoning. Medically inaccurate excuse. It happens faster than that. But I like it anyway. Hey, I have some more ideas for you. Next time, tell 'em you're sensitive to electromagnetic radiation from solar flares. Or, how about this: you're a psychic, and you're having communion episodes with your long-lost great uncle who died in a freak exploding pasta machine accident."

I bit back the sarcastic response I _really_ wanted to make and followed Zach to the lifts.

#####

_Author's note: Next chapter is some action, and then, finally, we'll have smut. Really. I mean it._


	6. Chapter 6

_Note: Last action chapter! Next chapter is the smut._

#####

Zach gave me a brief tour of the testing "lab", if it could be called that. Unlike the relatively new computer hardware on the floor above, the computers in the lab were aging and yellowing. There were dozens and dozens of old desktop towers stuffed side-by-side in long metal racks, and the shelves bowed under the weight. The room was filled with the wheeze of dying cooling fans and the whine of old hard drives.

"These are our virtual machine hosts for the QA department," Zach said. He was trying to be upbeat about it, but he couldn't mask his embarrassment.

"Uh—" I tried to think of something nice to say about the computers. One of them had a CPU sticker on it from last century and all of them were covered in a good layer of grime. "That's a lot of hardware," I said at last.

What I really meant was, _that's lot of hardware that should go to eWaste_—and for _me_ to say that, there was something seriously wrong.

"Yeah, they're a little slow, but they get the job done. Sorta."

_Wow, I'm guessing QA really gets the short end of the stick here..._

"You could use some newer hardware," I admitted.

"Eh," Zach said. "Alicia doesn't like to spend money on new hardware. I keep hoping we'll get a power surge or something that'll knock out the whole rack so we'll have to replace it. Anyway." His face brightened and he said, "C'mon, I'll give you a demo of GoldViz. My office is right over here..."

Zach's office was a tiny room just across the hall from the "lab". He invited me to sit on a threadbare office chair and then he logged into a desktop that was, if possible, even older and louder than the machines across the way.

_At least there's no way he can hear the vibrator_, I thought.

The GoldViz demonstration would've been deathly boring if it hadn't been for the toy in my panties. Even Zach's excited delivery couldn't mask the fact that GoldViz was a buggy, glacial, over-complicated, under-featured, set of applications that somehow managed to work in concert less than fifty percent of the time.

It crashed twice during the first five minutes of the demo.

_Yep_, I thought, examining the stack trace on Zach's monitor. _Another null pointer exception. QA definitely gets the short end of the stick_.

"Sorry, sorry—!" Zach said frantically. He muttered and swore and pounded at his keyboard. "It doesn't usually do this!"

"Uh-huh," I said. I was getting the exact opposite impression.

"Just a sec, I'm trying to get it up—"

_Can't get it up, huh?_ I thought to myself. _Oh god, _everything_ sounds like an innuendo right now. T__his must be what it'd be like if the stereotype about men and thinking about sex was true._ I was having a very hard time concentrating on anything. My mind kept wandering, daydreaming about my return to the apartment tonight. I couldn't wait for this day to be _over_ so Shaw could tie me to the bed and f—

"Woah," Shaw's voice cracked in my ear. "I just found an interesting pattern mode in the app. You're gonna love this one."

_Uh-oh,_ I thought. _I don't like the sound of that!_ By reflex, I put my legs together, but instead of speeding up, the vibrator spooled down until it was hardly a purr.

I waited, wringing my fingers in anticipation, but the speed didn't change much. I raised my eyebrows.

_That was anticlimactic,_ I thought. That thought was quickly followed by a mental groan_. Anticlimactic. Har har har._

"Got it!" Zach shouted. I jumped in my seat as the vibrator suddenly accelerated, then slowed again to a purr. "Oh, sorry," Zach said. "I didn't mean to startle you."

The vibrator pulsed in time with his words.

_Sound activation_? I thought. _Really?_ _While I'm stuck in the office with a motormouth_? _That is _evil!

"It's okay," I said quietly. "I, uh, kinda startle easily."

"Right," he said. "Anyway—it's running again. Let me tell you about—"

_Please don't, _I thought, but Zach plowed on anyhow. He didn't seem to have a volume knob anywhere and his delivery was so enthusiastic, I had a hard time getting a word in edgewise. His speech buzzed inside me as he talked about _heuristics_ and _signature-based _detection and _prediction algorithms _and I swear, he was picking words with lots of syllables just to fuck with me—literally. I couldn't pay attention. I tried holding still, I really did, but it wasn't long before I was squirming in my seat. My body tingled with desire and the pleasure between my legs built higher and higher.

_Oh god_, I thought, choking down a moan. _I don't think I can take this_!

"I—I need to go," I said, cutting Zach off mid-sentence. I stood, pushing the rolling chair back hard enough for it to bounce off the wall. "I think the cramps are coming back."

"Oh, no!" Zach said. "Do you need help?"

"No, I'm fine!" I said. I was already stumbling towards the door. "Just gonna go visit the ladies' room. I'll be back—"

I was _not_ coming back.

Shaw chuckled in my ear as I staggered out of Zach's office and made my way back towards the lifts.

"That was rude," she said. "You didn't even say good bye. I think you should apologize to poor Zach."

Quietly, I told Shaw to stick her little suggestion up one of John's orifices the next time she saw him and I stepped into the lift. It was a short ride back up to the main offices. As soon as the doors slid open, the vibrator kicked up a notch—the bustle of the office made the toy buzz and purr unevenly in my panties at a level that was more than a little concerning.

"I dunno how much longer I can keep this up," I whispered as I made my way back to my desk. On the way there, I caught sight of Shaw, who was lurking next to the water cooler. She didn't look my way, but I could see from here that she was grinning. "And don't you dare make a joke about stamina. I'd like to see _you_ try this."

"I'd like to see me try this too," Shaw said. Her voice turned smug. "I bet I'd last longer."

"Not if _I_ was holding the cell phone," I said. I was trying to sound irritated, but I found myself smirking at the thought. I wasn't usually the one holding the leash, but every once in awhile, it was fun to be on top...

"That sounds like a challenge," Shaw said.

"It did, didn't it?"

I sat down at my desk and squeaked—the movement had pushed the vibrator harder against my body. I squirmed and then glanced over my shoulder to see what Jackie was up to. She wasn't doing much. She was staring at her monitor again.

A few seconds later, she slammed her fingers on the keyboard, locking her workstation, and then walked away, leaving her chair spinning lazily in her wake.

"Shaw, she's on the move," I whispered. "She looks upset." Across the office, Shaw glanced up, her eyes tracking Jackie's progress across the office floor.

"She might be headed for the bathroom," Shaw said. "Nope, she's going for the hallway—probably to the stairwell. Come on."

I stood, trying not to look too excited about it, and followed Jackie at a respectable distance. _Finally_, something was happening on this case. I hoped it didn't drag on much longer. The way the vibrator was teasing me was getting unbearable. I hoped Shaw and I could save (or stop) Jackie soon so we could go home and fuck.

Shaw made it to the hallway first and ambled after Jackie. By the time I caught up to Shaw at the stairwell door, Jackie was already inside.

"She's heading up," Shaw whispered. She had the door open a crack. "Rooftop." She eased the door open a little further. We waited until we heard the sound of the rooftop door squeaking and then we crept into the stairwell. Together, we made our way up the stairs to the roof level.

"Wait!" I said, as Shaw grabbed the door handle. The toy buzzed harder at the sound of my voice.

"What?" Shaw said.

"The vibrator?" I said quietly, motioning to my skirt.

"Oh, right," Shaw said. She touched the phone screen and the vibrations died away. We counted to three and Shaw shoved the roof door open. I winced as it squeaked. Shaw and I stepped out onto the roof.

Jackie was nowhere to be seen. The rooftop was a maze of air conditioning units, weather-worn ductwork, and massive cooling fans. From the door, we could go left or right, following an air duct that was as tall as I was.

"Which way?" I said.

"Split up," Shaw said. Her hand went behind her back and a moment later she was checking her pistol. My heart sunk. I hated it when we had to resort to weapons, but it was a good precaution. I reached for my purse, intent on pulling out my own gun—and I realized that I didn't have my purse.

"_Dammit_," I said. "My purse—my gun—it's downstairs."

"Really?" Shaw said.

"No, I just said that because I like annoying you in high-pressure situations."

"Yeah, don't do that," Shaw said. She pulled back the velcro on the little hip holster and handed me the stun gun. "This'll have to do. If something goes down, stay out of sight and wait for me if you can."

"Right," I said.

Shaw headed off to the left. I followed the air duct to the right. Despite my best efforts to remain stealthy, gravel crunched beneath my shoes, but it didn't matter much—the roar of the HVAC equipment drowned out any sound I could possibly make.

Of course, it also drowned out sounds that anybody else might make, so I found myself checking over my shoulder often to make sure nobody was sneaking up on me. Anticipation seethed in my stomach and adrenaline pulsed through my veins. All my senses were dialed in to the max.

_Come on, come on,_ I thought. _Where the hell did she go_? I came around a corner in the duct to find more air conditioners, a stack of large plastic buckets, and some galvanized steel piping. Stepping over a low air duct, I peeked around one of the boxy, rumbling A/C units.

Even more air ducts.

Sighing, I followed the ducts, moving carefully—until I heard someone yell. My heart jumped, skipped a beat. I broke into a run, reached the end of the duct, and peered around the corner.

_Oh shit,_ I thought. _Oh shit, oh shit, oh _shit_._

Jackie was there, and so was Alicia. Jackie had her hands up and was backed up against the little knee-high wall that ran around the top of the building. If she took another step backwards, it'd be a long fall to street level. Alicia knew that, it seemed. I couldn't think of any other reason why she'd be forcing Jackie to the edge of the building by brandishing a length of pipe in her hands.

I could just barely hear them.

"I won't tell anyone, I swear!" Jackie said. She sounded terrified. "We can just—go back to selling them like we were, okay?"

Alicia shook her head. "It's too late for that. I can't trust you any more."

"Shaw, it's Alicia," I whispered. "Get here fast. She's about to force Jackie off the roof and I'm too far away to do anything with the zapper."

"I have no idea where the fuck you are," Shaw said. "Stall!"

_Stall?_ I thought frantically. _The heck am I supposed to do?_

Alicia was closer, about seven feet away and facing to my right. I wasn't sure I could take her by surprise.

"Sorry, Jackie," she said, stepping closer to the terrified woman. There was nowhere for Jackie to run. "If it makes you feel better, I'll send a little money to your mom."

_Do something!_

I stepped out from behind the duct, scooped up a fistful of gravel from the rooftop, and screamed, "RUN!" at the top of my lungs. Alicia whipped around just in time to get a face full of gravel. Jackie reacted fast. She ducked and darted into the maze of HVAC equipment.

"You little bitch!" Alicia yelled. I wasn't sure if she was talking about me or Jackie, and I wasn't really in the mood to stand around waiting for clarification, so I ran too. I didn't fancy my chances in a confrontation, because Jackie's pipe had a longer range than my stun gun. I tore down a narrow alley between heat pumps and ductwork with less than a foot to spare on either side. I couldn't see over the air conditioning equipment around me.

_Gotta get back inside!_ I thought. _Where the hell is the door? And where's Shaw?_

Up ahead was a T-intersection; I could go left or right. I had the feeling that the door was somewhere over to my left, so I went that way—and then skidded to a halt, because there was no way I was getting through the nest of electrical wires and refrigerant lines strung between the A/C units. I backtracked and ran right past Alicia, who tried making a grab for me—and missed.

Around the next bend, the alley between the equipment widened, but I still couldn't tell where the heck I was. I ran past a stack of buckets that looked kinda familiar. _I've seen those!_ I thought. _Wasn't the door to the left from here?_ I thought. _Please tell me the door is over there!_

I slid around the corner at another T-intersection, but there was no door waiting for me—just another boxy air conditioner blocking the path a dozen feet down the alley.

_Shit, shit, shit! _I thought as I spun around. It was too late—Alicia had caught up to me, and she looked _mad_. I was cornered. Fire burned behind Alicia's eyes as she stalked my way, slapping the pipe against her open palm. I brandished the stun gun, but there was no way I could use it before Alicia was close enough to attack with the pipe, so instead I scooped up another handful of gravel and threw it at her head. She winced and slowed just long enough for Jackie to run up behind her and smack her in the head with one of the plastic buckets. It bounced off Alicia's skull with a comical, hollow _thunk_, but she didn't fall; instead, she turned around and swung the pipe. Jackie just barely avoided the blow, which hit the air duct with a resounding _clang_. She fell backwards and landed on her ass.

Alicia swung the pipe up over her head as Jackie held up her hands, her eyes pleading for mercy.

Time slowed. I found myself on my feet, running towards Alicia, but I didn't remember standing. I flew forward, screaming like a hawk, and jammed the zapper into her back, using my momentum to knock her to the ground. She quivered and collapsed into a motionless heap beneath me, dropping the pipe in the process. I straddled her body and held the stun gun to her back, my finger resting on the trigger but not depressing it, just in case she decided to try anything funny.

Shaw came out of the maze of ductwork a second later, holding her pistol out. She took one look at the scene in front of her and lowered the gun.

"Oh," she said. "Sheesh, you're a control freak. Always gotta be on top." I laughed at that.

Jackie was staring wide-eyed at Alicia's unconscious form.

"Holy shit," she said.

"Well," Shaw said, "that was fun." She slipped her gun into the waistband of her pants and walked over to me. "You okay?"

"Yeah," I said. "Yeah, I'm fine." Shaw helped me stand and brushed dust off my clothing, then went over to Jackie.

"Hi," she said. "The police will be here soon. Are you hurt?"

"I—uh—" She stared at us disbelief. "No, no, I'm fine." Looking over at me, she said, "You got here just in time." I thought she was about to cry. Instead, she wrapped her arms around me in a tight hug. "Thank God for you!"

"Right place, right time," I said, patting her on the back.

Alicia stirred.

"Uh-uh," Shaw said, placing her boot on Alicia's back. "You're gonna enjoy your dirt nap until the cops get here."

Alicia's face twisted into an ugly frown, but she said nothing.

#####

Carter and Fusco arrived soon after. While Shaw and Fusco dealt with Alicia, Carter looked us over for injuries. By good fortune, Jackie and I had emerged relatively unscathed. My clothes were wrinkled and disheveled and my shoes were scuffed. Jackie would probably have a bruise or two—but that was about it.

Once she was satisfied that we weren't bleeding all over the place, Carter led Jackie and I back into the building and into an empty conference room.

Carter motioned for us to sit at the conference table. She sat next to Jackie and pulled out the little notebook she used to record case notes.

"Here's the deal," Carter told Jackie. "Your boss asked you to meet her on the roof. You don't know why. She tried to kill you. Sound about right?"

"Uh, yeah," she said, looking confused.

"Great." She snapped the book shut. "So, off the record—what really happened?"

"I—uh..." Jackie sounded uncertain. She looked between Carter and me.

Carter pulled her jacket aside just enough to reach her badge. She detached it from her belt and dropped it into her jacket pocket.

"On the roof, I heard you say something about selling things," I said gently. "Software licenses?"

Jackie's eyes widened slightly. "How on God's green Earth did you know?"

I shrugged. "I heard David talking about a license miscount. And, uh, you left your computer unlocked this afternoon."

"We're not looking to get you into trouble," Carter said. "But it'd be nice to get the whole story from you instead of Alicia."

Jackie sighed and her shoulder slumped. She crossed her arms, but not in defiance—she was cradling herself. "She was talking about GoldViz developer licenses," she said, looking down at the table. "I used to generate a few—for friends, you know? I'm not supposed to, but I have the key generation algorithm, and the licenses are _way_ overpriced."

"Especially for something that crashes every few minutes," I said.

"Yeah." She chuckled. "That's her fault, actually—she kept cutting at the QA budget. But—I—see, Mama's got medical bills, and we're always a little behind on the rent. And then like a month ago, someone emailed me asking if I'd sell a few dev licenses cheap, make a little profit, and it kinda got out of control."

"And then you tried backing out?" Carter said.

"Uh-huh." Jackie scratched the back of her head. "Then I got an email from the—from Alicia, and that's when I headed up to the roof." She sighed again, her eyes cast downward at the table. "I never would've thought she was the one who was having me sell the licenses."

"Kinda dumb that she tried to kill you," I said. "She could've kept it going."

"She thought I was going to go over her head," Jackie said. She looked up at me. "I don't know what I would've done if you hadn't shown up. Seriously, I owe you so much."

"It's what we do," I said.

"Can I at least give you another hug?" she said. "Please?"

"Sure," I said, smiling. Jackie gave Carter a hug too, just because, and then she hugged me again. She released me and sighed. "I'm guessing you're not going to be around here much longer," she said.

"Probably not," I said.

"Shame. We could use a programmer like you."

"Aww, thanks," I said.

She averted her eyes, and for a few seconds, there was awkward silence.

"So..." Jackie said. "What now?"

"Up to you," Carter said. "But if I were you, I'd want to take the rest of the day off, maybe go do something relaxing or be with somebody you trust. Sound good?"

"Yeah," Jackie said. "Yeah, it does. Thanks, Detective Carter."

"Just Carter." She smiled and handed Jackie a business card. "You need anything, you call me, okay?"

"I will," Jackie said. "Thanks. And, uh—Maria—thank you too. I don't know what would've happened without you."

"Try not to dwell on it," I said.

She nodded and left, closing the door softly behind her. Carter gazed at the door for a few seconds longer before she turned to face me.

"So," Carter said. "'Maria', huh?"

"Yeah," I said, pointing my thumb at my chest. "That's me. Says so on my driver's license. Wanna see my ID, officer?"

Carter chuckled and shook her head. "I don't even wanna think about how many driver's licenses you have." She paused, then said, "You okay?"

"Yeah," I said. "Yeah, I'm good." And I was. The shaky comedown off my adrenaline high was being neatly counteracted by that warm feeling of pride I got whenever we managed to save somebody's life—especially when I was involved directly. "Alicia was kinda a pushover."

"Uh-huh," Carter said.

Behind Carter, the door opened. Shaw slipped into the room. Carter didn't even notice.

"I gotta admit," Carter said, "I'm impressed. Nobody got dead. Nobody's even limping around with busted kneecaps."

"You're getting her mixed up with John," Shaw said. Carter hardly reacted; she just turned and raised an eyebrow.

"Last I checked, you've got a pretty impressive kneecap count too," Carter said, crossing her arms. "But I guess it's better than folks in the morgue."

Shaw shrugged. She was looking right at me with a lazy expression of boredom on her face, but her fingers were tapping on her cell phone.

I realized what she was going to do just before she did it.

_No_, I mouthed at her, pointing at Carter. I shook my head frantically. I might've been able to fake it around Jackie and Alicia and the rest, but Carter had that Mama-grade bullshit detector and I didn't think my creative excuses would fly with her.

Shaw's finger hovered over the screen. There was a nerve-wracking pause and then, with a dramatic flair, she touched the surface of the phone. The vibrator buzzed into life. I squeaked in surprise; Shaw had turned on _both_ motors, and even though they were on low, the sensations were startling after they had been off for more than a few minutes.

"You okay?" Carter asked, looking at me over her shoulder.

"Yeah," I said, gulping. "Just—hiccups."

Shaw looked like she was trying really hard not to laugh.

"Oh." Carter turned back to Shaw and said, "I'll see if I can get a confession out of Alicia. It'll save us some headache."

"Sure," Shaw said. Now her attention was fixed on the cell phone. She stroked its surface slowly, giving me plenty of time to see it, and the motors slowly gained power. I chewed the inside of my lip and fidgeted, rocking back and forth on the balls of my feet and rubbing my legs together and hoping like hell that Carter wouldn't figure out what was going on.

Carter sighed. "I have to get back to the precinct. Reports and all that." She rounded on me. "_You_ get to do the fun stuff—"

"You have no idea," Shaw said monotonously.

"Yeah, well, _I_ have to do the paperwork." Carter peered at me. "You sure you're okay?" she said. "Your face is all red."

"Fine," I forced out, right as Shaw turned up the vibrators even higher. Somehow, against all odds, I managed not to give any outward reaction. "I'm fine. Really."

Carter didn't believe me. I knew that look. It was the same look Mama gave me whenever I tried squirming out of an awkward conversation: eyebrows raised slightly, one just above the other, furrowed brow, tiny frown, the whole lot.

Shaw wasn't helping things. Her finger flicked up and down the phone screen and the vibrator motors kept buzzing fast and slow, fast and slow.

Carter just stared.

"I'm _fine_," I insisted, but it didn't sound very sincere. "Really!"

"Elizabeth—" Carter began.

"_Shaw_," I said, "will you stop playing with your damn phone and tell Carter I'm fine?"

"She's fine," Shaw said, but she didn't stop moving her fingers. "Really. She's fine."

"Do either of you even know what that word means?" Carter said, raising her eyebrows further, looking between me and Shaw.

Shaw shrugged.

I was getting desperate. "Look," I said to Carter. "I'll go home and rest if you're that worried. _Okay_?"

"Sounds like a _great_ idea to me," Shaw said.

Carter seemed mollified.

"All right," she said. She leveled a finger at Shaw. "But you're gonna make sure she stays put. Got it?"

"Sure," Shaw said. "Don't worry. She'll stay in bed."

"You do that," Carter said. She sighed. Her face softened. "Guess I shouldn't be so hard on you two. You did good—we'd be scraping Jackie off the pavement if it wasn't for you."

"All in a day's work," Shaw said.

"Right. Well, I'll let you two know what happens with Alicia, okay? I gotta go."

"Bye," I said, trying not to sound too relieved about it.

I waited until Carter left the room. I waited ten more seconds, just to be safe, before I finally let out the choked moan I'd been holding in all day.

"Oooooooohhhh _dammit_, Shaw," I whined, stomping my foot. "You have no idea how much I want to bone you right now."

"You know," Shaw said, "the battery is still at forty percent. Just think how much longer I could tease you with that thing."

_"__Shawwwww_! This thing has been teasing me _all day_!"

She looked up at me, then at the conference table.

"We could," Shaw said simply, tilting her head. "Right now."

I was tempted. God, I was _really_ tempted. My body was itching for release. But I didn't feel comfortable trying such a thing in a public place.

"Nu-uh," I said. "Can we just—can we go now? _Please_?"

"I dunno," Shaw said. "Maybe you should stay a few hours, just to, uh, be sure you didn't miss anything."

The look I gave her must've been absolutely murderous, because she smirked and said, "All right. We can go. Come on." She headed towards the door and beckoned me to follow.

#####


End file.
